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Our Trip to the Waterpark
For some reason, my kids’ school decided that this year there would be a mid-winter break in addition to all of the other breaks. Of course, I did basically no planning for it because I am barely managing to keep our regular life going, much less organize some big trip. A little over a week ago, I realized that I had no plans for the kids – not even a day trip. So I went online and looked for something fun for us to do. I found an indoor waterpark with an attached hotel. Lots of my kids’ friends were going somewhere much more exciting – to grandma’s house or…
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The Ensemble
Over the past month, my family life has been a bit consumed by the elementary school play, James and the Giant Peach. Claire tried out in the late fall and was cast as part of the ensemble. Since then, she’s had frequent practices after school. This has required a lot of coordination. The boys finish school at 3:15 and my dad gets them, but then I need to make sure I wrap up everything at work in order to get Claire whenever her rehearsal finishes. Or – more likely – I ask someone to get her. In the weeks leading to the performance, the play seemed to take over our…
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Report Cards
My kids came home this week with their first term report cards. I opened them up and braced myself. Last year’s report cards were decent, but Claire struggled academically in math and Austin sometimes shut down in big groups. I figured that those flaws were okay because, well, if they were managing to just attend school, that struck me as a win for the year. But this year’s report cards were great. I mean, no one is going to Harvard tomorrow, but both of my big kids are on grade level and doing things like “respecting the rights of others.” Austin “has a large peer group and enjoys interacting with…
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Austin and the Kittens
A few weeks ago, I took Austin out to dinner. Claire had a play date and Tommy was home with Grandpa Tom, so it was just the two of us. I let him choose the restaurant, and he decided that we should get pizza. It was a beautiful night, so we picked a table outside. We sat down and Austin looked at me without saying anything. I started to ask him about school. “Do you like the other kids in your class this year?” “Yes,” Austin said, simply. Then, I waited for him to say more. Instead, he just looked at the sky. “Well, are you learning interesting things in…
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Claire’s Hero
At the start of fourth grade, Claire came home with an assignment to write about her hero. “I picked you!” she announced to me. She then spent much of the afternoon finding a photo that she liked of me and writing about why I was her hero. It was really sweet and touching. My kid – the one who’s just on the cusp of being a tween – still thinks her mama is awesome, at least some of the time. As she was working on it, I sat down next to her to see what she’d written. “My mom is a brave courageous person,” it said. “My mother inspires me…
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Parent 2
My kids all came home after the first day of school with backpacks full of forms. “You have to fill everything out today!” Claire instructed. Even though I’m a teacher, I still can’t understand how schools make you fill out the same information a dozen times. Can’t they put all this stuff in a database or something? Of course, I never minded it that much before, because filling out forms was merely an annoyance. But now that I have to look at the “Parent 2” slot each time I fill out one of these forms, it makes me sad. Last year, I started writing “no Parent 2” but that didn’t…
There’s No Handbook for How to Do This
